fancies bright and dark

celebrations: London Book Fair 2017, day three

The morning of day three of the London Book Fair 2017 was surprisingly quiet … which made me suspect that there were serious parties scheduled for the evening of day two. LOL! Luckily for me, I’d had a quiet night.

The Best Laid Schemes …

Graham Bell, Executive Director, EDItEUR, ‘the international group coordinating development of the standards infrastructure for electronic commerce in the book, e-book and serials sectors’

Description:

schema.org is an extra markup you can add to a web page that can radically improve the page’s search ranking. In this session, Graham Bell shows how structured metadata from ONIX can be added to web pages by savvy publishers and retailers, using the schema.org vocabulary.

ISNI

Before we get going on the main topic, I thought I’d mention the new-ish ISNI (International Standard Name Identifier), which is like a unique ISBN for creators, whether you’re a writer, musician, artist, inventor, or more than one of those. If you’re already a published author, you may find that you’ve already been assigned one. …

I just got completely side-tracked by discovering that I have an ISNI! Just call me 0000 0000 6405 5343! (Look out! I’m licensed to kill, four times over.)

You can search for yourself on the ISNI Search page. If your record isn’t complete or needs amending, there is a link via which you can submit updates.

Right! I will focus now, I promise.

Schema.org

Schema.org is a way of embedding metadata in HTML, which provides a sophisticated form of SEO (search engine optimisation). It covers all industries, so it’s not necessarily as detailed for books as we’d best like, but the effects are really strong and useful.

It is sponsored by Google, among others, so e.g. when you search for a book title on Google, the results you see on the right of the page draw on any Schema metadata it finds. The following screen capture of a search for Persuasion provides a lot of useful results in that right-hand column. When I search for one of my own titles (which I have yet to code), I get a lot less information – it’s obviously drawing on information available in other sources, but why wouldn’t I want to improve the data?

Searching for Persuasion on Google.

The Schema metadata is made up of properties, against which you provide the data, e.g.:

The Importance of Metadata for Discoverability and Sales

The UK study (using Nielsen Book’s bibliographic data) looked at what correlation exists between the completeness of metadata and the resultant sales. The findings of the 2016 study echo those previously seen, where titles meeting the BIC Basic requirements and carrying more extensive descriptive data see higher sales on average than titles with less complete data. Taking the analysis one step further, the 2016 UK study also shows the positive correlation between the timeliness of data supply and the resulting sales.

For the first time, Nielsen Book has also run a US study. Analysing the US data (using Bowker’s bibliographic data) allows the identification of the correlation between metadata and sales at a high level. In addition, Nielsen has looked at the benefits of using keywords and the correlation with sales.

Clive Herbert, will present the findings of the two reports and show the value and importance of metadata in the book supply chain.

This session was specifically looking at the bibliographic metadata provided when registering for / using an ISBN, not the metadata that’s included in individual websites.

Nielsen undertook studies in 2012 (UK only) and 2016 (UK and US) on the correlation between the ISBN’s metadata and the sales for that title. The bottom line is that ‘complete metadata helps you sell more books’.

If the data is ONIX compliant and includes at least one Descriptive metadata element, this also boosted sales.

There are a number of Descriptive metadata elements. Nielsen looked at four of them: long description; short description; biography; and review. Again, completing these boosted sales.

The last factor to be considered was timeliness, which again helps. Nielsen recommends completing as much data as possible 16 weeks before release date.

On average, if you have complete Basic data and a cover image against your book, then you are likely to see twice as many sales. And as you fulfil other components as above, this all helps, too. The biggest effect was on fiction, though the same results were found across non-fiction and children’s books. Similar results were found in the US as in the UK.

I was interested to see the stats on numbers sold. For both the UK and the US, Nielsen were analysing the Top 100,000 Titles based on sales in a year. For those of us who are small fish in a large pond, it was reassuring to see that in the UK, the lowest sales (for the 100,000th title) were 171 copies. (I have managed more than that, at least for most titles!) For the US, the lowest sales were 783 copies. (And I’ve managed more than that for a couple, too.)

Graham added that the good use of keywords also helps, with a boost of 34% in sales over those books without keywords. He recommended the publication Best Practices for Keywords in Metadata by the Book Industry Study Group in the US as a good guide to this topic. (You can register for free as a ‘non-member’, which enables you to download their publications.)

I am a total geek about things like metadata – though obviously I have heaps to do now, to make sure mine is all spick and span!

The GMC Distribution stand – the only peeps I took swag from!

Meanwhile, however, I headed back to Author HQ for my last panel of the Fair:

Building Your Author Brand

Whether you’re writing your first book, exploring independent publishing or an established author, building your brand is almost as important as writing itself – indeed, it can inform and shape all aspects of your work. This practical seminar will help you to explore every aspect of your public identity as a writer: establishing a tone of voice on social media; identifying and reaching your readers; engaging with your fans; creating a visual identity; developing a range of products and services and much more. It will give you the tools you need to get noticed; and, by understanding your readers, give you invaluable insight into your target audience.

I had enjoyed Katie’s presentation in the Get Over Yourself panel the previous day, and she did not disappoint in this one.

First up, Katie recommended that we follow and learn from the following peeps:

Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn. A shining example of the entrepreneurial spirit, with an entire universe built up from her own fiction and non-fiction, her workshops and speaking engagements. She provides lots of useful advice to her fellow authors on writing, editing, publishing, marketing, and making a living from your writing. (I attended her panel the previous day on How to Reach More Readers, and can confirm she is a force of nature.)

Mark Edwards is an author who knows how to add value to all his interactions with readers, doing things like providing exclusive ebook bundles. Katie also loves Mark’s biography on Amazon.

Rachel Abbott, who Katie admires for her tight branding, beautiful clear consistent covers, and neat touches such as including notes for reading groups. (I caught the tail-end of one of Rachel’s panels, and I have to say she made an awful lot of sense!)

Katie then spoke about the following as ways of helping boost your author brand:

SEO (search engine optimisation) for improving your visibility. Keeping in mind what happens in Real Life, e.g. people generally search for ‘book’ rather than ‘novel’ or ‘fiction’.

Make sure your online content is optimised for mobile. Galley Beggar Press are a good example. Use the Google ‘Mobile Developer tool’ to assess your own site. (I assume Katie was referring to the Google / Chrome Device Mode, but if anyone can confirm, that would be great.)

SMO (social media optimisation) for visibility, engagement, and the sharing of cool content.

CTR (click through rate), or the number of clicks per link. Monitor and analyse the stats, e.g. CTR from an ad or from an internal link in your site. If something isn’t working, tweak or change it until it does!

CVR (conversion rate), or how many visitors perform the action you want them to, whether that’s signing up for your newsletter, leaving a comment, completing a survey, buying your book, or whatever the relevant goal is.

When developing your author brand, go through the following steps:

Marketing Capability. First assess what you can actually do, taking into account not only your own skills but also other demands such as your day job, your family and friends, necessary leisure time, and available budget.

Audience Objectives. Then consider your current / potential audience. Who are they? What do they want? This is the key element!

Commercial Objectives. What do you want to achieve?

Identity. What sort of tone, colours, images and other assets best express your brand? (We often make the mistake of starting here, rather than with #1! I know I am guilty of this.)

All of which feeds into your Brand Strategy.

Your Marketing Capabilities: Don’t try to do everything. Think about where your audience will be, what platform(s) they’ll use (digital and ‘real’). Pick one or two platforms and then do them really well!

Serena Williams is a great example of how to use different channels, e.g. sharing different aspects of herself on SnapChat and YouTube, as appropriate to people’s expectations of those platforms. There are no doubt people who are fans of her in those contexts who never actually sit down and watch a tennis match on TV. ‘Be like Serena.’

Also be mobile-friendly. People probably won’t actually read your book on their mobile phones, but they’ll do everything else there, including finding you and buying things.

As mobile phone usage increases, more and more people only use sites / apps they’re already familiar with. We are in a real transition here! (What to do about it, I don’t know. But word-of-mouth recommendations, and readers sharing things with friends, becomes more and more important.)

Your Audience Objectives: Live your readers’ reading moments. They probably will be only moments, snatched from a busy day! As you’re writing editorial content, think about the reader, who they are, what they want to feel. Think about them reading your book once they already have it. Where will they be? What format are they reading? What else will they be doing? Then work backwards from there, to how they bought it, how they found it, how they found you.

Your audience groups include:

Hardcore. The readers you already know. Your repeat customers. They want insight from you, inspiration, expertise. This is the group you’ll earn the most from. In terms of numbers, though, they will always be the smallest group, and you’ll want to keep expanding and replenishing from the next group.

Curious. The readers who’ve come looking for you. They want you to be useful to them, relevant to them. They want interactions and incentives.

Casual. The readers who’ve stumbled across you in some way. They want samples, they want to know more, to be convinced. They want to know what value you’ll add to their lives. Make them curious!

If you want to know more about people in all kinds of ways, check out Statista: The Statistics Portal. Here’s the link to the UK page. (You have to pay for the dossiers, but there’s free data, too, and it might be worth signing up for their newsletter.)

When writing / designing about yourself, always start with the assumption that no one knows who you are. Why should they care? Show them why!

Your Commercial Objectives: What is the point, for you? Reach, Retention, Revenue – or a combination of all three.

Reach. Follow the 80/20 rule, in only selling your product 20% of the time, and for the rest sharing, giving, simply interacting, having fun. Be generous!

Retention. Service your hardcore audience. Respect them and involve them. Seek their input. Tailor your content as much as you can to meet their needs.

Revenue. Experiment with your prices to find the optimum. It’s not true that ‘cheap’ is always the best choice. If you’re serving a niche group with quality content, they will be prepared to pay a high price for it.

Your Identity. Only do this now you’ve done what’s gone before! Invest in design, for you as the author and for your books. This is the apex of what you do! Use the design content consistently across all platforms.

If your content is digital only, then free yourself from expectations created by paper-based products. What does the cover of an ebook need to convey, when it is almost always accompanied by metadata? In the digital world, icons and eye-catching images are the key.

Also, design doesn’t always have to be beautiful. Sometimes bold and ugly is the way to go.

Design can be a catalyst, and get you / your book talked about.

Ultimately, design is unavoidable – whatever you do will be designed. So do it well!

Katie’s last advice was to avoid the genre trap! Genre is comforting, but how can you cut through that and stand out?

(Katie was awesome. Be like Katie.)

My swag! Too adorable to resist. Thank you, GMC Distribution!

And we’re done!

I had an absolutely wonderful time at the London Book Fair 2017, and I will definitely be attending next year as well.

The mood was surprisingly upbeat and optimistic, and I came out of it feeling really energised. (Not bad for this little introvert!) Many of the panellists were obviously really engaged with their work, and were having a great deal of fun.

Everyone seemed to enjoy being a part of this creative industry. There was a recognition that there’s never enough time or money – but how can we be more creative with what we have?

My To Do List has grown in all kinds of useful ways, as I learned so much. I certainly think the Fair has a lot to offer authors, self-publishers and small publishers. I can only assume that it has a lot to offer to all the other types of people involved in the industry as well.

I don’t know that I ever would have been brave enough to go without that little push from the people I’m currently working with, so I really have to thank them again. It’s made all the difference to me.

Images

I received a free copy of this novella from the author - the wonderful Relle - in return for an honest review.
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